


Counting and Counted

by TW Lewis (gardendoor)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-05
Updated: 2008-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardendoor/pseuds/TW%20Lewis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus gives Hermione what he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting and Counted

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: They’re not mine. Diverges from canon after Half-Blood Prince. Smarm, shmoop, whatever you want to call it.

There are several real disadvantages to marrying a former professional paranoid like Severus Snape. He comes awake at the slightest disturbance, so when the nerve damage to her arm, the damage that put an end to her career as an auror, wakes her to blinding, spasming, searing agony that brings tears to her eyes, she bites down a sob and clenches every muscle in her body. Don't wake Severus, don't wake Severus...

Despite her best efforts, of course, his eyes snap open and immediately assess the situation.

"Sorry," she whispers. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"How bad?" he asks, ignoring the apology.

She grits her teeth. "It's a nine."

When she was first injured, she would give answers like, "On a scale of one to ten? Fifteen. A hundred." But that isn't useful, even to her. By now they both understand that anything under a three is painful enough to make her snarl and cradle her arm protectively all day, while anything over a seven has the power to bring her to her knees and make her weep. At ten, nothing exists but pain and screaming. Tens, thank Merlin, are rare.

"Come on," says Severus, hauls her out of bed and half-carries, half-drags her to the bathroom, where a flick of his wand makes the bathtub faucets pour out a torrent of water and steam. A second wand flick and the towels jump off the rack to line the floor by the tub.

Hermione drops gratefully onto the cushioned floor and plunges her arm into the hot water. It helps, a little, pulls the pain back just enough to let her think.

Severus sits down beside her and she leans back into the comfort of his chest as he counts softly under his breath. When they'd first become involved, Severus had told her flat out that he could not stand to touch people while they suffered -- too many associations, he said, and she had a feeling that not all of those stemmed from Voldemort. But Hermione's mother had always told her that if you didn't ask for what you wanted, you could hardly get upset when you didn't get it, and when she'd asked, he'd surprised her with a compromise: he would hold her for five minutes, long enough to comfort her, but a finite span to quell his own reaction. Five minutes didn't sound long at all, but it was long enough for the heat to start to penetrate, long enough to wear the hysterical edge off the pain.

When he reaches three hundred, Severus gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze and leaves the room. He returns a few minutes later with a hot poultice, lifts her arm out of the water and wraps it in the warm, lemon-scented parcel. She closes her eyes and breathes in the aroma, feeling her arthritic claw of a hand finally begin to unclench.

"Better?" he asks.

"Better," she confirms, and lets him guide her back to bed. Once he has her settled against his chest, he reaches for the latest issue of _The Alchemist_ on his nightstand.

"You have to teach tomorrow," she protests half-heartedly.

"As do you," he says, undeterred. He flips to the third article. "I don't know what the man is thinking, calling for a full jar of hellebore. Too lazy to steep his own ingredients; I bet we could get the same results with a quarter as much. Better, even, if we played around with the stirring instructions and added the rue later to ease its astringency..."

"Severus?" Hermione murmurs.

"Yes?"

"I love you, too."

End.


End file.
